Family Matters
by coolbyrne
Summary: Add another fix-it fic to the pile. Jane finds out about the Frankie/Maura kiss.


TITLE: Family Matters

AUTHOR: coolbyrne

RATING: T

SUMMARY: Add another fix-it fic to the pile. Jane finds out about the Frankie/Maura kiss.

A/N: Someone on tumblr raised the point about family and Maura, and I thought it was spot on. And quite sad, actually. All she wants is a family, and what she gets is a situation where not one but both brothers view her as nothing more than a potential romantic partner. This has bothered me more than it should.

...

"You did what?"

"I kissed Maura," Frankie repeated. His shrug was a forced gesture of bravado against the nerves churning in his stomach.

Jane dropped onto the stool at her counter, pushing aside the food their mother had sent with him. He'd walked in with a shit-eating grin, and she knew not to ask why. _I knew, but I asked anyway_. With a puffed chest and a smirk, he confirmed what she already knew. Even then, as if her brain was trying to protect her heart, blood rushed to her ears, drowning out the words. Unfortunately, her brain was too occupied to stop her mouth from making him repeat the answer, so now there was no doubt. He had kissed Maura.

"Oh my God, Frankie," she murmured, her head in her hands.

"What? What's the big deal? I told her I always wanted to know how that felt, so I did it."

She raised her head and stared dumbfounded through a curtain of dark hair. "You said that?" He looked away and shrugged again. "So...what? You had some kind of itch to scratch and decided, 'Hey, I'll get Maura to take care of it?'"

"Hey!" he raised a hand in protest. "You make it sound like I forced myself on her. It wasn't like that."

"Wasn't it? So explain to me how it was, after she told you maybe you were seeing something that wasn't there. Jesus, Frankie."

His brow furrowed, remembering the conversation between them in the morgue. "How do you know about that?"

She sat back and crossed her arms. "I'm her best friend. She tells me everything."

With a confident twitch of his mouth, he replied, "She didn't tell you about this. Maybe she wants to keep this private."

"Maybe she didn't want to say anything to me because I've got my own shit going on right now," Jane shot back. When she saw his worried look, she waved it away with a hand. "No, you don't get to play concerned brother right now." She took a deep breath and separated her own personal issues from the matter at hand. "Did you ever think she didn't want to say anything because she's embarrassed? Or maybe she's worried it'll make things awkward between everyone? Hell knows, I can't get away from you people, which means neither can she."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You work where I work. Ma works where I work. Ma's new boyfriend works where I work. Tommy's girlfriend almost had her baby where I work. And when the day's over, then what? Ma lives at Maura's house. Lydia dropped TJ off on her doorstep. You fix your bike there. We have all of our family dinners there. She sits quietly while we air out all our dirty laundry there. You don't think messing around with Maura isn't going to affect everyone?" She rubbed her face before crossing her arms again. "It's why I told you not to get involved with someone at work."

He blew a derisive snort between his lips and chose to focus only on the last bit of her statement. "Please. Everyone knows you were banging Martinez."

If his comment was meant to shock her, it missed the mark. "Yeah, Frankie. And look how well that turned out."

Ignoring her rebuttal, he said, "Like I said to Tommy, I've liked her for a long time. The bomb thing only made things clearer."

"A long time, huh?" she asked. "But less than four years?"

Frankie tilted his head, confused. "What are you talking about?"

"Well," she replied, "if you were going to use a life-threatening event as an excuse to force yourself on Maura, you'd think it would have been, oh, I don't know- when she saved your life four years ago."

"Hey, I'm not gonna say it again- I didn't force myself on Maura." He shook his head and took a long hard look at his sister. "Is this really because you're mad you didn't make the first move?"

She jerked her head back. "What?"

"Come on, Janie," he replied, warming up to the subject. "Everyone knows you got the hots for Maura. Maybe you're just jealous I got in before you did."

She clenched and unclenched her hands and replied with a tone that did little to hide her quiet anger. "Yeah," she said with a hard laugh. "For once you did something _before_ I did. Congratulations, big man."

"Whatever."

"You don't get it, do you?" She shook her head in wonder. "You just don't get it."

"Why don't you explain it to me."

She looked down at her scarred hands, measuring her words. "I know it's hard, coming from the family we have, but imagine what her life's been like, Frankie. A mobster for a biological dad, a birth mother who wasn't involved in her life up to a year ago. An adoptive mother who needs a blow torch to thaw, and an adoptive father who I've never even met in all the years I've known her. A home life that was so cold, she wants to go to boarding school at 10 years old; out of sight, out of mind. Can you imagine it? While we're chasing the Bartolli twins out of our tree fort and running to Ma when we've crashed our bikes, Maura's sitting in some foreign country, resented and teased because she's fucking miles smarter than anyone else."

She took a deep breath and laid out a confession she had so carefully avoided admitting. "You know why I haven't made a move for her? Because I don't want to fuck things up for her. She's spent her whole life looking for a family, and God only knows why, but she chose us, Frankie. And I don't want to take that away from her. I don't ever want her to think she has to accept shit like members of the family putting the moves on her in order to keep that family." An edge creeped into her voice. "She wanted a family, and what she got is two guys who should be her brothers hitting on her. The last thing she needs is me doing it, too."

He had the decency to remain silent, and the quietness settled between them for several long minutes until Jane spoke again. "You know, I told her not to toy with you, because I didn't want to see you get your heart broken. But I was wrong. I will always be there to defend you, Frankie," she promised. "But I will always, always be there to protect Maura, too. If you can honestly say the same, I won't stand in your way. But if you break her heart..." her voice cracked on the last word. "Please. Don't."

Her cell phone rang, startling them both. With a shaking hand, she reached down and glanced at the message. _Can you come over? _With a sigh, she slipped the phone back into its holder and glanced up at Frankie. "It's Maura. She wants to see me."

The phrasing of her words were not lost on Frankie, and neither was the fact that Maura had called Jane and not him. Defeated, his shoulders slumped and he mumbled an apology. "Tell her I'm sorry, will ya?"

Standing, Jane pressed her hands together and shook her head. "No, you can apologize yourself. She needs to hear it from you." She wiped damp palms on the front of her jeans. "I've got my own apologies to make." Grabbing the keys from the dish, she added, more to herself than to her brother, "Add it to the pile of problems."

As her hand touched the doorknob, Frankie spoke again. "Hey." Jane turned and waited for him to continue. "We okay?"

Her face softened. "It was never about us, Frankie. It's about Maura." When he said nothing more, she turned the handle. "I gotta go."

He nodded and watched her leave.

...


End file.
